Running Out of Gas is The Best Way to Start a Business – DBA Small Business Show 18

Greetings, folks, and welcome to DBA, the Small Business Show. Episode number 18. Here in Durham, New Hampshire, I'm Dave Hamilton.

And in Concord, California, I'm Shannon Jean. How are you doing, Dave?

I'm doing well, Shannon. How are you doing?

I'm good, man. Good. You're recovering from a full day of summer rain out here, which is highly unusual for us.

I noticed that when I left yesterday morning. I was in San Francisco for Apple's developer conference and related events this week. And yeah, I was pleasantly surprised. For you, it was raining. Yeah.

But if one more, you know, weatherman tells me it's not going to help the drought, I'm going to come unglued. You know, it's, this seems to be the common occurrence out here.

If I tell you it's not going to help the drought, that we're okay, right?

We're fine.

Okay, good. All right. Hey, you're not alone over there, Shannon, are you?

I'm not. So I'm here with all J. RJ Waldron from Northwind Outfitters. And, rj, thanks for hanging out with us tonight.

Awesome. Thanks for having me, Shannon.

Yeah, you bet. So RJ is the proprietor exit of Northwind Outfitters. He is a guide. And it's all year long for you then, is that right?

It is, yeah.

And so I'm really excited to talk about, I mean, I'm an avid fisherman, waterfowl hunter. I love to be outside. And so the minute I got to meet rj, I said, oh, we got to have this guy on and talk about this stuff. So, rj, so tell us about what does this Northwind Outfitters do?

Well, I mean, we hunt and fish. We take people hunting and fishing year round. Basically just, we start off, um, well, in January, we're already, you know, waterfowl hunting. Sure. January, we're waterfowl hunting. Usually that wraps up with our late goose season in February. And then we go into turkey hunting and spring stripe bass fishing, salmon fishing in the summer, some upland, some dove hunting, a little more striped bass fishing, and then. Right. You got a message from Dave Hamilton.

Yeah, yeah, no problem.

I was telling, I was trying to. Yeah, I knew that was going to happen actually, but it's all fine. We'll keep going. I, I, I needed to tell Shannon to stop breathing into the mic. And our listeners will appreciate that.

I'm getting excited hearing about this.

If I hear that, I shouldn't react.

That's the idea.

Yeah.

And I knew it would hit you, RJ because he switched the output to Your. Your thing, but that's fine. We'll keep going. We.

We'll. Let's start over.

No, we'll pull the curtain back.

Yeah. So. So, okay, so the. The hunting and the fishing, is it all take place here in the Bay Area, or do you travel around other areas?

It's all over Northern California.

Northern California.

Okay, so some of the waterfowl huntings in the North Valley, you know, Chico, Marysville, Sacramento. And then the fishing, obviously, is. You're real close to home. You're in the California Delta.

Okay.

And. And in the Pacific Ocean out of. We depart out of Emeryville and go out underneath the Golden Gate Bridge and fish for salmon and other stuff.

Nice. And how long have you been doing this? How long have you been running the company?

This is. I'm going into my ninth year, so I started 2006. January 2006.

And. And how'd you get started? I mean, did you. Did you just fall in love with it and figured, you know.

You know, I think that I. Deep down, I always wanted to do it. I was fortunate enough that growing up, my dad didn't fish that much. So when I wanted to go fishing, like if we're on vacation, he would hire a guide or a. Or a part, you know, charter. Charter boat or something like that.

Sure.

And I always envied those guys. You know, I mean, I saw the. The deckhands and the captains, and I'm. What. You know, what a life they had. Um. Little did I know that you have to take the good with the bad. Yeah, that's right. So, yeah. So basically, I. I started a couple other businesses prior to this, and. And I've worked a plethora of jobs. I mean, since I. I've worked since I was, I think, 14 or 15. I had my first job over in Alamo at an arts and crafts store, and I just kind of went between a lot of different jobs. And not that it was a bad thing. I just. I kind of. I think it was A.D.D. you know, I just. I would. Okay, I'm ready to move on.

That's entrepreneurs. It's either a curse or an opportunity. Yeah, right. One or the other.

That's it. So. So when I started Northwind Outfitters, I was actually working for a great company called AMS Electric and their electrical union, electrical contractor here in the Bay Area. And I was doing. I was a purchasing manager, and a friend of mine was doing some guiding, and he said, you know, I know you've talked about it before. We could really use your help. You Know, is that something you're interested in? And I said, yeah, you know, I. I think it'd be pretty cool. And so anyway, so it was a Friday at 1 o' clock and I was in Pleasanton. Office was in Pleasanton. And he said, he called me, he said, what are you doing right now? I said, well, I'm at work. He said, well, I need you to work for me tomorrow. Can you go get your guide license? So I said, let me call you right back. So I went up and I talked to whoever the boss was and I said, hey, you know, I got this opportunity to work, you know, on the weekend, but I need to split now to go get this license.

Right.

So anyway, so I jump in my truck and I drive from Pleasanton to Sacramento. I get my bond. You have to get a bond?

Yes. I was going to ask you. So they, these guys, you're licensed, certified. I mean, you have to get tested. They just want to register you.

And it's just, it's just an application process. And that's actually, it's gotten a little bit harder since I. Since I did it. But anyway, I got my license and ran my first guy trip the next day.

Wow.

Wow. And so that's. It was. So the, the guy who hired me, he gave me his boat to run. I was taking two clients. Duck hunting and.

All by yourself with another guide or just by yourself?

Just by myself.

Wow.

And so I hunt, but I've hunted out there a lot, so I'm familiar with it.

Okay.

And I just never taken people for money.

Yeah.

So anyway, we get out there and we shoot a bunch of ducks and it was great. But on the way in, we run out of gas.

Okay.

So that's a rookie mistake right there.

It. Well, here's the thing. It was a full tank of gas. I just didn't know the range of the boat and we had run around a bunch and.

Yeah.

So we were probably a couple hundred yards offshore coming into the marina. So we ended up paddling in. The clients are helping, you know, they helped me paddle in and I apologize, you know, and they ended up giving me a. Some gratuity. They gave me a tip. I must have done a good job.

You know, they.

Anyway, the customer, George Overstead, he was my first customer. He's a youth. Youth coordinator at California Waterfowl. And now. Yeah, he's been a regular customer ever since. So it's kind of great.

Yeah, he's.

He comes back every year and he.

Gives you a hard time for that, that story.

Sure he totally does.

Nice.

So. So anyway, that's how I got. Got started and, and I. It was a part time thing at first. And then basically my wife said, hey, you know, you're. Why don't you just do it? And so I did. And I had. After I left, I left the electrical contractor and I started a handyman business and I was doing the guiding part time.

I see.

And I just basically saved the money and worked, you know, got some help from my folks and bought my first boat and bought my second boat and then, you know, just grew it from there. So.

That's awesome. You know, Dave and I always have talked, you know, many times on the show about how important this. To have support from your spouse and that kind of thing. And I could imagine, you know, something like this where, you know, it's a lot of unknowns that having that someone that goes home and supports you, like that'd be critical.

It's. You know what, she's totally awesome because the long hours we work and we don't have, I mean, during duck season we take off Thanksgiving. For the last three years anyway, we've taken off Thanksgiving and Christmas Day.

That was it.

That was it. We're working seven days a week. And during salmon season it's the same thing. You know, we get. Once we get the ball rolling like last year, we started, I think the first week in July and my first day off, which was a work day, was the first of September when we went dev hunting. We took clients. Dev hunting. Wow. So on the ocean every day. So commitment it is. And she, she's very understanding to that. And it, I think it took her a little while, but. But yeah, no, I think she, she's really good and that's great. So it's awesome.

It's a big deal. And you know, you mentioned to me one time before we were talking about business and you know, and I think you alluded to it the, you know, the good and the bad. And it's very common to be passionate about something, but very different to run a business around it, you know, and all those kinds of things. And, you know, I think that's really important and keeping that passion going. And do you. What drives you every day when you go, is it just being out there and having the opportunity or what's the best part about it?

It's the customers.

Okay.

I mean, that's, that's what it's all about. It's about putting them in a, in a cool situation, an adventure, getting them the game. You know, I talk To a lot of people every day about the difference between the bag and experience. Bag being, you know, what you go home with your ducks or your fish or the experience. And I've always kind, sometimes I think, you know, the experience gets lost because, and it's a, we walk a fine line as guides that, you know, it's our job to, to help them get that game right. You know, and that's people a lot of times, you know, they come with a guy, they expect to get a limited duck.

Sure.

Limited fish, where they're wild animals. You know, we tell them all the time, hey, you know, we're going to do our best. We're going to give you the best opportunity we can. But, you know, take this as an experience. Go home and, you know, remember the day you had in the field with your son or daughter, your wife.

Absolutely.

You know, your buddies. And really that's what it's all about. We like to try to convey that to people. So that's part of it.

No, that's, that's really smart. I, I, this is interesting because it reminds me I had a computer consulting business for a while, and when we were, before we realized we weren't selling solutions, we had a big problem. Right. Because if you, if you're out there selling, you're going to, you know, get game on, on this particular trip or a certain amount or anything, you may be setting yourself up for failure.

Right.

You know, for sure.

Oh, yeah, right.

But in low expectation, high reward.

That's it. Yeah, exactly.

And so much of the weather, you know, dependence on stuff. Yeah, yeah.

So you have, obviously, if you have more than one boat, I'm assuming you have employees and that sort of thing, is that right?

I do, I do. I have basically Jim, who's kind of like my right hand, and he runs a lot of the duck hunting trips and works on the salmon boat with me. And then I have a partner in the waterfowl business, Jason out of Vercello. And so during duck season, we partner up. We, you know, basically we have some overhead with the leases. We lease ground for the, for duck and goose hunting. And so that really helps a lot because it's expensive to lease the ground here.

Can you guys share the, the, the land between your, your clients and hunts? And that kind of thing we do that makes a lot of sense.

And so it's just at your business, it's just the two of you, except for when you partner with this other guy or.

Correct, correct. And we have, during waterfowl season, we have two like basically part time kids.

Yeah.

You know, well, actually, they're adults. I mean, to me, they're kids, but, you know, you.

They're definitely kids to me too.

Well, you know, Bobby. Bobby's on our du.

Oh, cool.

He helps us during duck season. And then Zane Peterson, who's another great waterfowl.

And these are guys that you feel comfortable with, and they can take a client out, show them what's going on.

And that's huge. I mean, it's absolutely huge because Jason and I and Jim, we all have a really high standard with customer service, and we've had guys that haven't worked out because of that, you know, and it's really, really important that the guy we send with our clients, you know, mirrors what we're doing.

Yeah.

You know, from the time the customer pulls up to the parking lot till the time he leaves, you know, greets him at the truck. You know, it's. It's just. It's huge because, you know, it's. It's us.

Well, oftentimes these people have weapons, so it's important, you know, you want to. You want to do that. So we talked about the good thing. So, you know, how about the. What are the challenges? You know, you. You were started talk earlier and maybe you can share that here with us about your, you know, being out on the boat all the time. And maybe your stomach wasn't as happy about that. You know, how do you overcome that?

Well, with the seasick, we were talking about getting seasick. So a lot of people don't know this, but I do get seasick. And. But I haven't been seasick in 10 years. And I. So I was telling you earlier we. I worked on a boat as a deckhand for a summer, and I was throwing up while I was working. The captain said, this is not going to work, rj. You just can't do it. So I went online and I found this watch, this device that's called the relief band. And what it does is it. Shannon, you'll know it's like a shock collar for a dog. For hunting.

Yeah.

Well, it's shot. You put on your wrist and it shocks your wrist, gives little electric pulses to your wrist, and it hits some kind of nerve and it prevents me from getting seasick.

And you wear that.

I wear it to this day, every single day. Because when you have a captain's license. So that's. You're talking about the guy, the guide license. Well, I have a guide license and then I have a captain's license. And the captain's license allows me to carry passengers for hire on the ocean and the delta and the bay.

Okay.

But as a licensed captain, we can't use any kind of drugs.

I see. Yeah.

You know, so. So the watch really works. It's great. And I put it on when I leave the dock in the morning, I throw it on, and when I get back, I take it off. And like I said, I haven't been seasick in 10 years.

That's cool. Yeah, that's a great thing. It's overcoming that. That's good. That's great. Well, you know, on this show, we're a big fan of mistakes and. Because, you know, speaking for myself, I won't speak for Dave, but you can.

Speak for me or I can speak for me. I mean, I've made plenty.

Yeah, me too. Yeah, of course. And that's how, you know, we learn a lot of stuff. So, you know, I gave you a question, you know, sample earlier. It's like, hey, well, what's the best mistake you've ever made? You know, that really taught you a lesson about your business or yourself or, you know, like that.

You know, this was the one that you gave me some sample questions. This was the one that kind of, you know, and obviously we. Yeah, you're right. We've all made mistakes. I think that the worst mistake, Best mistake is not vetting people that I have. Come work for me.

Oh, sure. Yeah.

You know, really having them come out and, you know, kind of like an internship.

Yeah. Do you take them out? I mean, on their, you know, the beginning kind of thing.

Yeah. And I think that a lot of times people come out and they might be really good hunters or really good fishermen.

Yeah.

But they're not good customer service guys. And.

Sure.

You know, and. Yeah, that's.

That's probably.

It probably is the worst. But I guess best, too, because now I'm really. When I have people come work for me, I basically tell them, hey, this is basically how it's going to work. It's got to. You know, it's got to.

Well, you have to have a consistent experience with your customers. Right. I mean, it's. They come back year after year. They don't. I mean, it's. Each. Each person is obviously going to be different, but you've got to make sure that there's some consistency in the quality and all that.

Yeah, no, for sure.

Yeah. I would think that'd be very, very difficult. And so, you know, how do you market your business? I mean, what. What. What do you do to get the word out about, you know, what you guys do.

Well, I market it in so many different ways. I mean there's a lot of different, especially with social media right now. I mean, that's huge. I, I like to say that I was one of the first guides slash captains in the Bay Area to really get on Facebook.

Yep.

And it's funny because like the first year I was running in the Bay, I was talking about it and people were like, what is this Facebook thing? And I go, and you guys can. If I, I should have, I shouldn't have said anything.

Right.

But now it's amazing how, you know, all the captains post their daily scores for the fishing.

Oh, they do? Yeah. I see you're up there all the time and I follow you and, and see the fish. It's awesome.

But the whole time I've been doing this, I've only paid for one advertisement my whole career as a guide.

Yeah. And was it effective?

It is to some extent. I still pay for it. It's a hundred dollars a year. It's on this, I don't know if you know the refuge forums. It's a blog.

Oh yeah, blog, sure.

So I have a little like banner on. It's actually just a, a text banner.

Linked. Okay.

It's a link.

Yeah.

And then I can post, you know, quote unquote, spam.

Right.

You know, I can go on there in the forums, in the forums. And that's the only advertising I've ever paid for.

They should charge you more. They're not charging you enough. Hopefully they don't listen, but.

Yeah. So they don't assist. Yeah.

I mean, I'm in the business of selling web ads and if, if they're only charging you 100 bucks a year and you continue to pay for it, it's not enough.

Yeah.

And it's target market too. I mean this, Yeah, I mean it's, it's right there.

Well, it's, you know, it's probably run by hunters, not, you know, marketing guys and that kind of thing.

I'll be nice and say they should charge you 110. There we go.

There you go. That's right.

So it's funny now is that I, I get, I don't want to say berated, but it really is berated by different companies, you know, selling ad space on websites and, and a lot of actually, you know, newspaper style or magazines.

Oh yeah.

They want me to buy ads in their magazines, you know, for my guide service.

Right.

And, and they, I go, well, you know, I'D be happy. You know, shoot me an email. I'll look at the pricing and all that. And it's just when I get it, I go, I. I don't think I could even. They're like, well, it's only one trip. I go, yeah, but it's just ridiculous. I don't even read a magazine.

Yeah, you know, yeah, sure.

I mean, sure. So, but with Facebook and Instagram and Twitter and I mean, it's huge.

And is your client base, I mean, are those, you know, these guys and you know, women that are out there are. They are. They're all connected and following and commenting. I mean, I see a lot of activity on your stuff.

If I had to put a number on it, I'd say probably over 75% are connected via, you know, the social media outlets. And then, you know, we have the old timers that, you know, they will call or I'll actually, they. A lot of them have email.

Okay.

And I, I think we talked about it. I started just this year, actually started using mailchimp and one of my clients turned me onto it and it's. It's unreal.

Yeah, it is.

It is great service. Real.

Yeah.

Although I noticed you unsubscribed to mine. What was up with that?

I did. I have no idea. Yeah.

Can you believe that?

Must be an auto thing in there. Anytime somebody, something comes in.

Let me save you, Shannon here.

Before.

He digs in too deep, I'm curious. With your business on Facebook. Over the last maybe 18 months, Facebook has changed their formula. Well, they've changed it in a lot.

Of ways, but it's totally changed.

Yeah, right. Well, one of the ways, and I'm curious about this is in terms of how it relates to you is, is that businesses typically don't get shown like posts from businesses don't get shown in people's feeds unless you pay to boost them. So have you ever done any of that or.

Or are never.

Okay.

Never paid for a Facebook ads at all. No. I mean, and I know other guides that do.

Yeah.

And. And they definitely show up on my feed a lot more. But it's because I think historically I've been on Facebook for so long now. People I think have and I, you know, what do you call it? They.

They seek you out.

They follow you and they follow it. Yes. To the disliking. There's a. There's a follow.

What is it called? RSS feed.

Yeah, well, there's an. There's such a thing as an rss. I don't know how it. I don't think they Facebook or they.

Subscribe to my subscribe or some kind of thing anyway. But I definitely see a decline in my business. So I have a personal Facebook page that I post to and my business page, and there's definitely a decline in Page views.

Yeah.

And, you know, replies.

And I'll bet that I get all your posts on your. On the personal side versus Because I think I follow both. But we've noticed the same thing with, with Tech Restore is that, you know, we did the. Did some trials with Facebook and, you know, you can, I mean, you have to really come up with what is the value of a. Like, you know, what. What value is that to you? And we were just going over today and you can double your, you know, your likes quickly. I mean, if you're willing to pay for them. But I don't know how that transcribes to really good organic business people that want to do business with you. I'm not sure.

You know, I will say this. You know, most people certainly in our business are still even like, you know, 18 months, almost two years later, still vehemently against paying Facebook for exposure. But the good news is for those of us that don't really have a philosophical problem with doing this, it's still dirt cheap to do. So. So we boost our posts a lot and it works for us. But, you know, I mean, we're in a different business. We're pushing web views and exposure. And so it doesn't take much for us to turn a, A, an exposed or a boosted post into something that's actually valuable. It happens pretty quickly for us.

It's a good. It is pretty inexpensive.

And yeah, I look at it kind of like with the, with the salmon fishing right now. If you remember back when we used to read newspapers, you know, you want to look at the box scores for the A's or, yeah, sure, Red Sox or heaven forbid, the Yankees. And so people go to Facebook and they go, okay, I'm gonna look at Northwind Outfitters. I'm gonna look at the Sundance or whatever the boat might be. I'm gonna pull up Facebook and I'm gonna just type in Northwind Outfitters, pull up his daily post. Okay, here's what he did today.

Yeah.

And I think that I get a lot of that.

I see.

Even if it's not.

They're not following you all the time, but they're checking and seeing what's going.

They're checking in.

Yep.

And I think that's just a It's like a following, you know, and it's the same thing with Instagram, and so. But I definitely think that people are going on there every day and looking at the page, especially during the different seasons, if they're in, you know.

Yeah, yeah, makes sense.

No, that makes. That makes sense. So you've got, like you said, you've got people that are seeking you out, and so you don't need to. To boost those things necessarily.

You're talking about, like, coming up higher in the feed and someone's feed.

That's right.

Yeah. If you. When you post, there's a little button that says boost post and it shows and that kind of thing. Now, do people go rate your. The business up on Yelp and those kinds of things? Yeah, yeah.

And I don't have a great showing on Yelp, and I've actually been. They've been kind of. I don't want to say stalking, but.

Oh, yeah, no, they stalk us too.

They've been totally stalking me. And so I'm thinking about doing something with Yelp. The friend of mine is doing something for their business with the help, and it seems like it's working okay, but I think people look at Yelp, I. I do, sure. Because, yeah, I mean, I use it, but I, you know, I. I'm. It's not proven to me yet.

Yeah, you know, it sounds like. I mean, I would think with your businesses that word of mouth has got to be so powerful. It is, you know, when people are talking about what a great time and, and going back to your earlier point, you know, the experience versus the, the quantity or whatever. And, And I think that's a. A critical part of your success is because, you know, you. You want to ensure that. And that's what everybody talks about. It's not like, oh, I got X number of fish or X number of ducks or, you know, that kind of thing. And that's part of it. But sharing that experience is what, you know, I think what it's all about.

We, you know, we end up getting a lot of organic, you know, client organic searches from Google, you know, where people just come in off Google. You know, they'll put in San Francisco Bay, you know, duck hunting or Sacramento Valley duck hunting or salmon fishing. And when I first. I've had a couple different websites. I've gone through a couple websites since I started, and the one I have now, there was another guy that every time I go to Google and I put in the different, you know, related searches, he would always come up. So I Call the guy. I just straight call. I go, hey, what's up? How do you do that? And he goes, well, I hired these folks out in Minnesota or something and they, they did this thing called SEO, right? And I go, for you. I go, that's great. I go, well, let me get their number.

Yeah.

And he goes, okay. And so I call the people up.

That's awesome.

So good for you, man. That's great.

Yeah, it's a way to do it.

Well, listen though, this is gets better. So I call them and they go, they go, yeah, no, we can, we can do it. Let me send you, we'll send you over a quote, right? To do SEO, all this search engine optimization on my website. So he sent me this quote and it's abs. I forget what it was, but I remember looking at it going, are you really? I mean, it was like $2,000 or something.

Sure.

Like, so I called my friend who worked for Intuit at the time and I said, what is SEO and can I do it myself? And he just started laughing. He goes, dude, you can totally do all this stuff yourself. So he went through, he said, basically, just start with the photos, take all your photos, put the keywords. So I spent like, basically like two weekends, I just plugged away on it. And it's amazing how fast my website just boom. Just right to the top.

Yeah, that's awesome.

And so we get, what I think is we get a lot of our out of state business from that because really they don't have like the word of mouth, you know?

Sure.

You know, there is some now where guys like, especially the guys that come just to shoot specific ducks, they're talking a taxidermist or whatever. Yeah, but yeah, no, that's the SEO to me, I think is a big thing. And I started looking at my. I have a, what's a WordPress? I have a WordPress website.

Right.

And so it has the analytics on it. And I, you know, I used to be really. A lot more, you know, I'd spend a lot more time paying attention to that. Not so much anymore, but.

Right.

But I look to see where, what posts I was making. Like if I was making a post on the Refuge forum or a post on Facebook, if I got traffic that day onto my website. So, you know, just to kind of analyze it.

Yeah, that's great.

What works?

That's cool.

It sounds like, it sounds like you've developed good habits. I mean, I'm sure any, any new images you're putting up, you're doing the keywords. And tagging them and all that stuff.

So some. Sometimes, yeah. As much as I. Not as much as I should. Yeah.

You know, that's great. That's a fascinating business. And I mean, it's your plan to. Go ahead, Dave, I was going to.

Say, if you bought two more boats, then you'd be incentivized to. To do more of that, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Get some.

Get some debt service going.

Yeah, yeah. That'll motivate you. That's right. That's it. That's it. So, I mean, is your plan to continue to grow it or is it at kind of the level that you. You're happy with or.

No, I'm not happy. I want to grow more.

Great.

Yeah.

That's cool.

Yeah, absolutely.

That's great.

And I actually kind of suffered a setback this year with. With the. I had that lease for the pig hunting.

Oh, and that's right. You lost at least.

So that was, it was, you know, kind of a. What do you call it, a hiccup or growing pain. I think that I, you know, I kind of put my eggs in one basket.

So explain to our listeners so how that works. You agree to lease a certain section of. Of land, is that right?

I did. I did. So for three years, we leased a piece of ground and north Monterey county, and we hunted wild pigs there. And it's a really, really lucrative part of our business. I mean, people pay a lot of money for it, and it's like. For lack of a better phrase, it's like crack.

Yeah.

I mean, people, like, they want.

People are happy to get rid of the pigs because they're a big problem. Totally. Yeah. Yeah.

So originally my business plan kind of had me stripe bass fishing in the spring and turkey hunting. So three years ago, I essentially gave up the striped bass fishing in the spring. And I had a lot of clients, a lot of repeat business. But I told them, hey, listen, in the spring I'm going to be doing wild pig hunting. So now I lose. We lost the lease on this ranch. The owner decided he didn't want to have hunting there anymore. And so I had to basically this spring try to rebuild that. That spring striped bass business. And it was really a. It was. It was definitely a growing pain.

Yeah. And are you going to. Are you trying to get back in the pig business here for next year?

For sure, for sure. Yeah. So. But it's, It's. It's tough. It's because it's on a large block of private ground, and most of the time the people that own the large blocks of private ground. They don't need our money.

I see. Yeah, yeah, that's, that's, that's true. That's great. Well, you know, we appreciate you coming in, just chatting with us for a while. It's a very interesting business, obviously, to me and I think to our listeners as well. You know, we always wind up, up with a question, you know, the looking back, trying to connect the dots type thing. And, you know, if you could give yourself some advice when you were just starting out, you know, something that was maybe seems so obvious to you now that you didn't, you know, what, what would you tell yourself when you got started nine years ago?

Quicken.

That's great.

I Seriously.

Accounting.

Accounting. Absolutely.

That's a great answer.

Absolutely.

I gotta add, I gotta add that to my list.

I, yeah, I, I, I always, I try to antic what people are going to say, and I was way off the mark, so.

Me too.

I mean, how so now I'm curious. You started out, I'm assuming, just managing your, your books in a checkbook. How, how long ago did it, or how long into it did it take before you and I know into it. Now there's a pun. Not intentionally. How long into it did it take for you to, to migrate to Quicken? Right. Not just not Quick Books. That's, that's the next phase.

Right, right.

It Quicken. Right.

Yeah.

I just got, actually just got a quickbook, so I'm gonna be working into that one now.

Yeah. Okay.

You know, it's the tough thing about our business, and I don't know if I can even say this on the air, but it's a cash business, you know, so there's a lot of cash, so you have to try to kind of figure out how to.

Yeah.

You know.

Yeah. How to track everything.

How to track everything. And so, yeah, it, that when I started, it was like, okay, here's this, here's where we put the cash. Here's the credit card. Right. And so, but yeah, my friend that worked for Intuit, he got me the, the Go payment for my good friend, man. Yeah. So he got me the go payment, the credit card.

So you take credit cards from your credit cards.

And so for a few years, I didn't take credit cards at all. It was just cash or check.

Yeah.

And yeah, that was kind of my birth into, you know, really focusing on where the, you know, because, like, my receipts, I just had them like in a huge pile and at the end of the year I'd lay them out on the bed. And Fritzo would be like.

I could totally see that. Because, you know, and that is, I think, very. Yeah. And it's very typical. Yeah. Yeah, it's. I mean, because you're. You're just so busy, you know, trying to make the business work, and, you know, you're thinking, oh, I got to be making money. I'm so busy. I'm so busy.

And even now, Shannon, I mean, still, it's. I mean, it's still an opportunity for us. I mean, because. Because there's so many receipts for different stuff with all the boats and with bridge, toll and hotels. I mean, there's. It's a. There's a lot of different stuff. And so, yeah, that's.

That's great. That's definitely.

Definitely. If I had to look back, I'd say, I wish I would have been stricter on myself when I started. So that way, you know, not picking up the pieces.

Yeah, I'm sure there's a lot of people listening are like, hitting themselves in the head going, God, that's me, too, man. You know, that's it. So, okay, rj, how do people find you? What's your web address?

My web address is N wind, short for Northwind. Nwindoutfitters.com.

Awesome. And you're on Facebook, right?

Facebook, Northwind Outfitters. Twitter is captain abbreviated C, A, P, T, R, J, W. And it's the same thing for Instagram.

Awesome. That's great. Dave, you have any other questions for rj?

No, man. This is it. It's fascinating. Yeah, because it's a. It's. It's a business, as many are born out of passion, and. And you still get to live that passion every day.

That's.

That's awesome.

Thank you. Yeah. No, it's a lot of fun. It is.

Well, thanks again for joining us. We really appreciate it.

Awesome. Thanks a lot.

Yep.

Thanks, folks, for listening. If you have any questions or tips or anything you want to send in, send them to feedbackbapodcast.com that'll get to both Shannon and I. And if you have any questions for RJ specifically, you can certainly pass them to that address or you can reach out to RJ at his website there@nwindoutfitters.com thanks again, RJ, for coming on board and having some fun with us tonight.

Awesome.

Good luck to you in the future, man.

All right, thanks.

Awesome. Good night, everybody.